E 




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. Q.xW\r- 



8PEECH 



HON. EDWARDS PIERREPONT, 



l)ELtVEKKI> BEKORK 



The Republican Mass Meeting, at Wilgus Hall, 



ITHICA, N. Y., 



October 11th, 1872, 



NEW YORK: 
Evening Post Steam Presses, 41 Nassau Street, corner Liberty. 

1872. 



SPEECH 



HON. EDWARDS PIERREPONT, 



DELIVERED BEFORE 



^> 



The Republican Mass Meeting, at Wilgus Hall, 



ITHICA, N. Y., 



October 11th, 1872, 



NEW YORK: 
Evening Post Steam Presses, -il Nassau Street, corner Libertv. 

1872. 






^^ 



FelJoic-Citizens : 

Learned naturalists tell us that the animals which came out' of 
the ark were the same in kind as those which now exist, and 
that each, after his kind, fi'om the lion to the kid, had 
the same appetites, the same instincts, the same animal 
nahire as now. Hinnan nature was the same before the 
flood as it is to-day. That Cain murdered his brother, 
you all know ; but did you ever think Avhat he killed him 
for? — Jealousy — that was all — jealousy, because his younger 
brother's oflering was more acceptable to the Lord. In- 
spired by the same jealousy, Joseph's brethren determined 
to murder him, but at the suggestion of one less cruel, they 
mingled a little avarice with their envy, and sold their brother 
as a slave." Murderers of the life, for jealousy, are a little out 
of date, but in their stead, we have assassins of the reputation. 

Formerly those who differed in opinion were put to the 
rack ; now they are put to the public newspapers and to public 
speakers ; the torture is more refined, and wrings the deep 
anguish from the soul, runs through the household nerves, 
from wife to prattling child, and fiends have new delight. 

In our Saviour's time they brought to him a woman who 
had done a wrong, and wanted to stone her to death. The 
Saviour said, " Well, stone her to death, as you claim to have 
the law, only do it in this way : gather the stones, form the 
ring, put her in the midst, and let him that is without sin 
among you, cast the first stone." These virtuous hypocrites, so 
eager to vindicate the law, looked one on the other, and every 
arm was palsied, and not a stone was thrown, and they went 



out one after another, and the poor woman was left unhurt, 
alone. 

But now men's consciences have grown so blunted, or they 
themselves have grown so free fi'om fault, that they cloud the 
noonday-sun with stones, which they throw so thickly at their 
fellow-men ; and of all, the President of the United States is 
the one most assailed. His ordeal, severe as that of ancient 
martyr, he has stood. He has walked with unshodden feet 
over the burning plowshares, and through the craclding flames, 
and the innumerable Voters of Nebraska and of Maine, of 
Vermont, Ohio and Pennsylvania looked on, and. when they 
saw him issue from the fires without a blister upon his feet or 
a singe upon his garment, in loud and overwhelming numbers 
they gave him their vote ; and all the people say : Amen ! 

The election of Grant is secure ; but we must redeem our 
great State, out of which four years ago, Gen. Grant was de- 
frauded b}' false counting. 

The news which we have just received is sure to make the 
Greeley men abandon the national contest and cause them to 
concentrate all their energies upon this State. If they can 
secure New York, then they have a good nucleus for future plot 
against the union of the States and the success of free govern- 
ment. 

The late war was not an accident. It grew out of the two 
great contending principles which have ever, from time to time, 
convulsed the world. The contest between good and evil, be- 
tween freedom and slaverj^, between liberty of conscience and 
tyranny of the soul, between God and the Devil ; and this 
warfare will continue, until He, whose right it is to reign, shall 
have put all enemies under his feet. 

This new plot against the Union and the liberties of the 
country was hatched of secession brains. It began before Mr. 
Greeley made his memorable tour through Texas and the South, 
in the Spring of 1871. After his return he made and published 
a speech in the city of New York, on the 12tli of June : in it sev- 
eral passages occur which we did not then understand, the 
meaning of which the Baltimore Convention made clear. As a 
specimen of those passages, then obscure, but since so plain, 
we cite the followina" : 



"But, gentlemen, the past is past. Let tlie dead bury theii- 
dead. I. am prrj'ecfly loiUinri 1o paxs rcccijiti^ v'dli /Ar Eepu]5LI- 
CAN Party, and .sr^?/ tliat our acroxufs are void srffJcd and. r/osyv/." 

Tliis was uttered by Mr. Greeley to a large assembly in the city 
of New York, while fresh from his meeting wdth Jeff. Davis and 
other leading rebels of the South. We did not then imagine that 
they were going to make him the Democratic candidate 
in 1872. But I/e did ; and hence his notice, that he was ready 
to close accounts and pass receipts with the Bepublican party. 
The account is closed — no receipts are needed — what profits 
he will reap from the new partnership, next November will 
disclose. Secession Georgia has gone for him by an over- 
whelming vote ; the Grant men w^ere driven from the polls. 
I dare say that Texas and Tennessee and other rebel States 
will follow this example. We can " forgive them, only be- 
cause they know not what they do." This Southern plot to get 
control of the government by the seduction of an ambitious, 
able Northern man, and a lifelong enemy, is not new. Reference 
to the past will throAv light upon the present. It was well 
known in the early winter of 1850, that Mr. Webster had part- 
ly prepared a speech in harmony with the sentiments of his 
life on the subject of slavery. On the i4th of February he 
wrote to his friend, Peter Harvey, as follows : 

" Washington, Feb. 14, 1850. 

" My dear Sir, — I do not partake, /// a?iy degree, in those ap- 
prehensions which you say some of our friends entertain of the 
dissolution of the Union, or the breaking up of the govern- 
ment •■ ■'■ ■'■" 

" I have, thus far, upon a good deal of retleotion, thought it 
advisable to hold my peace. If a moment shall come that any 
temperate, rational and practical .speecA which I can make would 
be usL'ful, I shall do the best I can. One purpose I wish to 
execute — and that is, to call on Mr. Berrien, and other South- 
ern gentlemen, to state distinctly luluU are these a.c:s of the 
North, vhich, it is said, constitvie a series of aggressions by the 
North on the South. 

" This matter ought to be looked into a little more carefully 
than it has been. Let the North keep cool.'' 

And to give a little foretaste of what that ''speech'' was to be, 



he wrote the very next day to Rev. Mr. Furness, of Philadel- 
phia, as follows : 

" Washington, February, 15, 1850. 

" My dear sir, — I was a good deal moved, I coui'eas, by read- 
ing your letter of the 9th January. Having regard for your tal- 
ents and character, I could not feel indifferent to what you said, 
when you intimated that there was, or might be, in me, a power 
to do good, not 3-et exercised or devoloped. It ma}- beso ; but 
I fear, my dear sir, that you overrate, not my desire, but my 
power, to be useful in my day and generation. From liuj ear- 
liest youfh I have regarded slavery as a great moral and politi- 
cal evil. 

"I think it unjust, repugnant to the natural equity of mankind, 
founded only on superior power ; a standing and permanent 
conquest by the stronger over the weaker. AH pretence of de- 
fending it on the ground of different races, I have ever con- 
demned. I have ever said that if the black man is weaker, that 
is a reason against — not for, his subjugation and oppression. In 
a religious point of view, I have ever regarded it, and ever spo- 
ken of it, not as subject to any express denunciations, either in 
the Old Testament or the New, but as opposed to the lohole 
spirit of the Gospel, and to the teachings of Jesus Christ. 

"The religion of Jesus Christ is a religion of kindness, justice 
and brotherly love. But slavery is not kindly aft'ectioned ; it 
does not let the oppressed go free. It is, as I have said, but a 
continued act of oppression.'' 

How incredible, that " the speecW which was expected to call 
Mr. Berrien and the other Southern gentlemen to account for 
their arrogant charges against the North, and in favor of " let- 
ting the oppressed go free," should, in tliree short tccels, have 
been turned into an argument in support of the most infamous 
law to oppress the slave, and in scorn and mockery of the 
" higher law," as taught by the religion of Ciirist ! 

A crashing thunder-clap from a cloudless sky could not have 
more startled the astonished North ! A Southern senator had 
suggested, that there was an able statesman in the North who, if 
his mind expanded to embrace the views and interests of the 
whole country, would be made the next President of the United 
States. All knew to whom the aUusion pointed. Webster was 
then sixty-eight years old. His dream of jears had been the 
presidency. He fancied that oft repeated dream was now to 
be reality ; and he suppressed his honest spech, which was in 



harmony with the teachings of his youth, the record of his life, 
the convictions of his conscience, and the holiest sentiments of 
every enlightened friend in the civilized world ; and perverting 
his great intellect to the unholy use of trying to make his trust- 
ing countrymen believe that right was wrong, and wrong was 
right ; to make them " conquer their prejudices," violate their 
conciences, abandon the worship of God, and prostrate them- 
selves before the Devil, who had, from a high mountain, jjrom- 
ised him, what he valued more than all the kingdoms of the world, 
— the Presidency,— if he would fall down and worship him,Web- 
ster fell before the tempter, and rose to make his memorable 
speech of March the 7tli, 1850. A speech which shocked the moral 
sense of the Christian world — made mourning in ten thousand 
honest hearts that loved him, and had trusted him so long, and 
threw into painful perplexing doubt ten times ten thousand 
more. But the deed was done. A conscientious wave of 
murmur rolled deeply down towards Washington, and the 
" Godlike Daniel" heard it ; but his tempters flattered him, and 
soon after made him Secretary of State, and told him that the 
presidency was near. The accursed law was passed, and to 
show their contempt and unutterable scorn of what they called 
" the dough-faced, mean and mercenary North," they inserted a 
provision in the bill, that if the evidence induced the commis- 
sioner to surrrender the hunted slave to the claimant master, 
then the commissioner should be paid by the United States 
$10 for the service, but only half that sum if the evidence 
showed the man was free. 

Webster had helped the slave-hunters to all they asked, but the 
slave-hunters had not yet given the promised presidency in return; 
but, being men of boasted honor and chivalry extreme, they will 
surely keep their word — of course they will ; they would 
challenge you, stab you, or beat you after the style of Brooks, 
if you suggest that they will not keep their promise to Webster. 
But the Convention is hard by, and in June, 1852, it met. 
They balotted many times ; and how many Southern votes did 
Mr. Webster get ? — Not a vote ! Two knoMTi and trusted slave- 
holders had their votes. 

A Virginian was nominated for President, and a North- 
Carolinian for Vice-President. But Webster had not one 
Southern vote — not one. 



8 

He did not wait f(jr the election, but went home to die. 

At Marslifield, beside the sounding sea, he looked through 
those solemn e^-es out upon the vast ocean : — all was gloom ; 
he looked within ; and memories of his young days upon New 
Hampshire's hills came back ; his early trust, his honest youth, 
his religious teachings, his manly faith in God and truth, the 
faces he had loved, the numbers in his adopted State who had 
trusted him almost as a savior, and given their consciences to 
his keeping ; and now they loved him sadly, but trusted him no 
more — the panorama of liis whole life unrolled, and he saw it 
all — his great. heart turned Avithin him, and of no disease, he 
died. There prone he lay, — the gTandest, saddest wreck, that 
ever stranded on ambiti(m's shore. 

But "his works do follow him." Northerti gentlemen were made 
slave-hunters for the South ; and Commissioners, sitting as 
Judges on human lil)erty, generally earned the ten dollars, and 
found evidence that the victim was a slave. Some fathers 
killed themselves, and some mothers killed then- children, to es- 
cape the horrors of slavery. 

The higher law was scoffed, and Northern pulpits furnished 
their full quota of subservient tools, and wittily laughed about 
the '' higher law." Two years passed on, and then in obedience 
to the slave-owners' mandate, that sacred compact with the 
North, known as the Missouri compromise, which excluded 
slavery "forever " from all territory north of 36° 30' was re- 
pealed, and a boastful senator said in his place, that he Avould 
"call the roll of his slaves on Bunker Hill." When this base deed 
of perfidy Avas done, then rose the mighty North, and the 
great Eepublican party sprang to life. In its first campaign it 
was defeated by Buchanan, but shoAved su3h strength that the 
South saAv that the aAvakened conscience of the North could 
not be hushed by threats or bribes, and that slavery was 
doomed. 

Then the plot to subvert our government earnestly began ; 
then followed the election of Lincoln in 18G0, which the slave- 
holders desired as the pretext for the overthrow of free govern- 
ment in the states. Buchanan was timid and infirm of purpose ; 
Breckeuridge Avas a bold, ambitious slave-holder from Kentucky. 
The first plan, in the Avinter before the inauguration of Mr. 



Lincoln, was to force Mr. Buchanan to resign, and leave the 
government in the hands of Bi'eckenridge, Avhom the plotters 
conld trust. Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and Kentucky were 
to join; march thirty thousand troops into Washington, de- 
clare the Union dissolved, and form a new union with these 
four States surrounding the District of Columbia, and Breck- 
enridge legitimately at the head ; the Southern States were all 
to join this now confederacy ; the north-west were to be invited 
in ; the middle States, it was supposed, would follow from 
commercial interests, and thus " a bloodless revolution," as the 
traitors called it, was to be accomplished, and New England, 
with her twelve senators and her troublesome conscience, was 
to be left out. 

This plan, written by one of the conspirators, is now in the 
city of New York, with comments reflecting severely upon Gov. 
Hicks, of Maryland, because he refused to join in the treason. 
I mentioned the substance of this to Gen. Scott, at West Point, 
during the war. " True, sir," said he — " true, sir, every word 
of it ; I was consulted about it — they did not ask me to join in 
it, but to remain quiescent ; I prevented it ; Gov. Hicks was 
shivering in the wind, sir, shivering in the wind, and I stiffened 
him up— I prevented it." 

This plot failing, secession followed, and the terrible war 
came. These men whom slavery had made tyrants could brook 
no interference with their absohite power. They frankly said, 
that they would rather " reign in hell than serve in heaven," and 
during four full years they enjoyed the luxury of that kind of 
sovereignty, until Jeff. Davis fled in the disguise of a woman's 
petticoats before the soldiers' of Grant. From that hour they 
have plotted to regain their power and restore their " lost 
cause ; " not bj' war — they had tried that — but by diplomacy ; 
nob out of the Union, but in it. They have never for one mo- 
ment repented — never admitted that they were wrong, but 
have always insisted that they were right. Jeff. Davis, in his 
triumphal progress through the South, in May last, denounces 
all as " rowarrh " who " accept the situation " and who admit 
that the arbitrament of the sword has decided their condition. 
The}^ nowhere accept the situation, but only yield to might, 
which they all say is not right, but only a temporary condition 



10 

of necessity. They remembered the great Daniel Webster, and 
they knew that Horace Greeley M-as from the same granite 
State, but of less granite stuti", of a more restless and equally 
unsatisfied ambition, and they singled him out as their man. 
Mr. Greeley was not the choice of the Liberal Republicans, 
but was forced upon them by the intrigues of the secessionists 
of the South, allied with the copperheads of the North. 

The same breed of men which tempted Daniel Webster from 
his allegiance to tlie North and to freedom, have now seduced 
Mr, Greeley to abandon his convictions of a lifetime for the 
hope of the Presidency. This is a secession plot, an unnatural 
alliance, a coalition, in which every hater of the Union joins. 
It will surely fail. The forces will be routed and scattered in 
disgrace, and thousands who are now in the combination will 
be ashamed of it and conceal it as a crime. It is based upon 
no principle. It is neither natural or honest, and it must come 
to grief. 

Do the Democratic party think that Mr. Greeley is /// to be 
President ? Does Mr. Greeley think that the Democratic Party- 
are fit to inoko a president? Hear what each says of the 
other ! 

So recently as the 6th of last June, the World cited a large 
number of extracts from the Tribune, to prove that no Demo- 
crat with the slightest self-respect, could support Mr. Greeley. 
Out of a large number of these extracts from the TrUmne, I 
read a few : 

'■ If there w^ere not a newspaper nor a common school in the 
country, the democratic party would be far stronger than it iit\ 
Neither elementary instruction nor knowledge of transyjiriug 
events, is necessary to teach tlie essential articles of the demo- 
cratic creed : ' Love rum and have niggers.' The less one 
learns and knows, the more certain he is to 'vote the larger 
ticket, from A to Izzard.' ''' 

" If democracy has concocted or borrowed an ' interference 
theory,' which justifies such meddliug, it is a worse tlicor)' than 
even we had su))])()S(>d. All do know that there are several 
hundred thousand nmlattocs in this country ; and we presume 
no one has any serioirs doubt that the fathers o^ at least nine- 
tenths of them, are white democrats." 

" The World recently gave a graphic account of the dens and 
denizens which give character to the Five Points, and other 



11 

' slums' of our city — a class, perhaps, lower in the scale of being 
than can be found in any heathen city on earth." 

" We thereupon asl^-ixl our contemporary to state franlcly 
whether the pugiHsts, bhick-legs, thieves, bui'glars, keejx'rs of 
dens of prostitution, ttc, &c., who make uj) so larg(i a sliare of 
our city's inhabitants, were not almost unanimously demo- 
crats." 

" For the last thirty years, every American slave-holder on 
the African coast, has accounted himself in politics a democ]\xt. 
So, every one who chooses to live by pugilism, or gambling, or 
harlotry, with nearly every keeper of a tipi)ling-liouse, is i^olili- 
cally a democrat." 

Speaking of the Democratic party, he said : 

" It is rebel at the core to-day — hardly able to reconcile the 
defeats of Lee, Johnston, Bragg, Hood and Price, and the con- 
sequent downfall of its beloved Confederacy, with its traditional 
faith in Divine Providence. It would hail the election of a 
Democratic President in 1872 as a virtual reversal of the Ap- 
pomattox surrender. It would come into power with the hate, 
the chagrin, the wrath, the mortification of ten bitter years to 
impel and guide its steps. It would devote itself to taking ofi' 
or reducing tax after tax, until the Treasury was deprived of 
the means of paying interest on the national debt, and would 
hail the tidings of national bankruptcy with unalloyed gladness 
and unconcealed exultation. Whatever chastisement may be 
deserved for our national sins, we must hope that this disgrace 
and humiliation will be spared us." 

And the World, commenting upon these extracts, said : 

" If he does still think that all the vilest classes, all the 
scum and dregs of the community, are drawn to the Demo- 
cratic Party by a sympathetic chord, he disgraces himself in 
asking for democratic suffrages ; and if these incessant 
charges of thirty years are wanton calumnies, it would be an 
indescribable baseness on the part of Democrats to adopt him 
as their candidate. If the party is infected with such a loath- 
some moral leprosy as he has so perpetually asserted, how 
\\.iiev\y vile avrl sordi'i m>i-'^t he his hanker imj for office to 'tonteoJso 
among thern ! ' He wound up one of hi^Joid tirades against the 
Democracy by saying: ' May it he wrilfeu on my grave that 1 
luus never its Jolloioer, and lived and died in nothing its debtor.' 
And let the people say, Amen ! " 

And on the 25th of last Maj, this same World newspaper 
said : 



12 

" We have domoDstrated, over and over again, that Mr. 
Greeley is an unfair disputant ; that he is' fun-iwi'sc, irjvnravt, 
wronri-headed, sophisticaL and argument at ively diahoned ; thai Ids 
views are at all points ojojMsite to those of the Democratic Party ; 
that his judgment is as unsound as Ids imj>>dses are wayirardy * 

It estimates Mr. Greeley now, as itself and all Democrats 
estimated him up to the moment of his unexpected nomina- 
tion ; and because it keeps right on in maintaining its long- 
settled opinion of a man whom it has alwa3'S regarded a.v a 
fanatic and a charlatan, it is — 'erratic' Which is ninch the 
same thing as saying that a line of undeviating straightness 
runs zig-zag. 

" Mr. Greeley is a very antithesis of a Democrat. He has 
strenuously fought the Democratic Party all his life. There is 
no one question, citlier of jDrinciple or policy, on tuhich he agrees 
ivith us except the transient question of amnesty. By nominating 
him lue should stultify ourselves as Free Traders ; stultify our- 
selves as opponents of the paternal tJicory of government ; stultify 
oursehes as the champions of State Hights ; stultify ourselves as 
antagonists of the Ku-Kluo: law, tlte odious bayonet election laic, 
martioJ law in the Southern States, and the tvJujle series of sub- 
jugating measures ivhich 3Jr. Greeley lias champ/ioned, and the 
Democratic Party has unanimously opjjosed, ivithin the last tiuo or 
three years. We have not altered our opinion of tiiese detest- 
able laws, and Mr. Greeley has not changed his. For either to 
change now, or rather to profess a change, in order to help on 
the proposed coalition, would have such an air of insincerity 
that the self-respect of both parties should forbid them to 
publish so holloiv a renunciation." 

On the 5th of last June, the World further said : 

" The truth is, that Mr. Greeley has next to no Republican 
strength, and that his most active Democratic supj^ort comes 
from tlie trailing element of Die party and the folloicers ivhic/i thai 
element controls. It Avas, therefore, a cunning piece of strategy 
to hold the ratification meeting in this city, the seat of the 
shivered Tammany Ring. If the sheep were fairly separated 
from the goats it Avould be foiind that Mr. Greeley's supporters 
in this cit}' consist almost entirely a/' that class of Democrats 
wiiom he has been accustomed to denounce in the Tribune as 
the th'egs and ott'scouring of creation." 

Mr. O'Coiior, in a letter to Judge Lyon, of Richmond, dated 
September yOth, 1812, speaking of the Southern men and of 
Mr. Greeley, says : 



13 

" The desolation of which they complain is attributable to 
him. The long and disastrous war that filled his " bloody 
chasm" with fratricidal slaughter, and involved tin; whole coun- 
tr}' in debt and demoralization is due to the " uiKHjuahHl energy," 
combined with the folly, of this one exceedingly able, exceed- 
ingly amiable and exceedingly niistthicvous man. I regard 
the possibility'' of his election with inexpressible aversion. If 
the ideas of heathen times prevailed, I would cheerfully sur- 
render my person as a sacrifice on the altar of that deity whoso 
controlling events might thus be propitiated and induced to 
save my country from the impending evil.'" 

These extracts abundantly show how hollow, how false, dis- 
honest and unnatural is this coalition of the Greeley men with 
the Democratic Party. 

The people have never distrusted Gen. Grant, and he has 
never distrusted them ; in our darkest hour he did not doubt 
for one moment that the people would vote right ; we are apt to 
trust those who trust us, and to hke those who like us. When 
the first news of the North Carolina election came and looked 
so gloomy for our cause, the President said to an old life-long 
friend, " General, don't be disturbed, you and I have camped 
out ui:)on the plains, and heard the wolves howl at night ; you 
would think from the noise that there were a thousand, but we 
know that there were not more than three." The false howling 
from North Carolhia did not disturb the President at all. 

The news which we have just received from Pennsylvania 
and Ohio assures the success of Gen. Grant. His elec- 
tion means peace, continued, and vastly increased pros- 
perity. All business-men feel that, and many a democrat M'ill 
deposit a silent vote for Gen. Grant, rather than risk the com- 
mercial disturbance and financial distrust which would follow 
the election of Mr. Greeley. 

I concede that to a capitahst of collossal means, general 
prosperity is not always the most profitable. Disturbance 
and financial distress vastly increases the opportunity of such 
men to double their wealth. They take advantage of the 
depressed market, and make heavy purchases of stocks, of 
bonds, of goods of various kinds, and when the market turns, 
they sell at enormous profit. The beginning of the war caused 
great commercial distress, and soon the great fortunes were 



14 

largely increased, -wLile many oi the smaller ones perished 
utterly. The relative distance between the ric/t, and those of 
moderate means has \vid<i]e(l immensely within a few years. 
A great millionaire can truh' say that he does not fear 
any financial dilHculty from the election of Horace Greeley ; 
I dare say, he would profit l)y it. In depressed times the rich 
grow richer, and the poor, poorer ; I speak not for the very 
few of enormous wealth, but for the men of business generally. 

Our people are awake to this new coalition of rebels, cojjper- 
heads, disappointed republicans and ambitious politicians, and 
they will scatter it like chatf by the overwhelming re-election of 
General Grant. 

We hear much about the North keeping up hostile feelings, 
and refusing to " clasp hands aross the bloody chasm." Who 
dug the chasm and filled it up with blood? Who prevents the 
green-sward from growing over it ? Who imposed the carpet- 
baggers upon the South V — themselves have done it all, and they 
alone are responsible. It is time to stop this senseless cant 
about the way the South have been treated. Badly governed 
they are, I grant, Ijut it is their own mad fault. Let them ac- 
cept the situation, return allegiance to the Union, and honestly 
aid the government in restoring peace, good will, harmony, and 
just government to all, and there is not an imagined right 
which the generous North would not too cheerfully give. 
But wjiile they alloiv scourgings and torture, and murder of in- 
nocent men, for opinon sake, or applaud to the echo the sen- 
timents of their rebel chief, who tells them that all " are cotc- 
ards who accept the situation," they cannot expect peace, in- 
flux of capital and new population, or any great prosperity. 

The troubles in the south are the fruits of their own doings, 
and they are not chargeable to the north. When justice and 
good sense take the place of sullen pride and revengeful pas- 
sions, they can have liberal treatment and prosperity without a 
parallel. Their bad rulers are chosen by their own voters, and 
the North are no more to blame for their dishonest governors 
than are the South for the official thieves who have stolen our 
substance. Away with these false charges against the North, 
and the administration of Gen. Grant, in relation to the South. 
They are not made in the interests of the Union and the good 



15 

government of the United States— they are the offspring of 
rebel hate, and the disappointed mahce of ambitious men. 

Mr. GriK'ley's coalition cannot capture this State. Tt is .surr 
for Gen. Grant for the following reasons : 

///,•,<?;. — It Avas really cai'ried for Grant four years ago, when 
the democratic party was in the height of its power, united, 
and in the most perfect disci] )line. 

Second. — Mr. Greeley cannot poll the vote which Gov. Sey- 
mour polled, by more than twenty thousand. 

Third. — Gen. Grant will get a colored vote of full seventeen 
thousand, which he did not get in 1868. 

Fourth.— The Tammany ring is broken up, all their power 
is gone, and there will be no false counting this year. 

Fifth. — The King cannot rob the public treasury and debauch 
petty leaders by stolen money. 

Sixth. — The honest Democrats have no heart in voting for 
Greeley — -they think his nomination by the party a blunder 
and a fraud, and most of them will not vote for hhn. 

Seventh. — The Eepublicans carried the State last fall by a 
large majority, and most of the reformers will now vote for 
Grant. It is safe to predict that lie will carry the State by 
more than twenty thousand. 

I shall rejoice when the vote is cast, and the election settled, 
for more reasons than one. It will leave the way clear for 
the consideration of the great questions which are sure to 
arise within the next live years. The question of Mexico, 
the question of tariff, the question of taxes, the question 
of finance, the question of acquisition of new tei-ritory, and 
the labor question. These questions will force themselves 
upon us, and they will get considered. I went two days 
ago to the office of the Board of Health, in the city of 



16 

New York, aiid asked for a report of the deaths in the 
city. I hold tlie report in my hand. Two thousand eight 
hundred and twenty- six children under five years old died 
in a single month this summer. Their little dying plaint 
mil come up some day, and ;isk us why we let so many die ? 
The doctors say unwholesome food and polluted air was the 
chief cause. Is there no relief from unwholesome food and 
polluted air in this rlfli, sea-washed city of ours V I have no 
time to night for these discussions ; they will intrude them- 
selves upon the stage before long, and you will hear about 
them. 

I ask no better evidence of the hopeless condition of our op- 
ponents than the wild and desperate measures to which they 
resort. This is the first time that I have seen religion made 
prominent in poHtics ; the first time that I have known emi- 
nent men invoke religious prejudices in favor of one and against 
the other candidate ; and may it be the last. Let Jew or 
Greek, Protestant or Catholic, worship God as his conscience 
dictates, but do not bring his religious faith into political strife. 
Vote for the man who is right on the great questions affecting 
the union of the States and the safety of our country. Vote 
for him who is capable and honest, who was right on the war, 
and who has contiriiled right on the questions involved in that 
war, and never ask whether he be Protestant, Episcopal or R(j- 
man Catholic. 

On the next day after Mr. Kernan was nominated for Gov- 
ernor, the Tribuneio\(\. us in a very significant article that he was 
" a .since)'!' and earnest Roman Catholic." What was that paraded 
for '? Everyone knows. Did any Republican paper say that Gen. 
Dix was "a sincere and earnest" member of the Protestant Epis- 
copal church? No ; nothing of the kind woidd have been tolera- 
ted. But we have another man — Governor Seymour^ — -a more 
adroit and skillful politician, seizing in desperation upon the re- 
ligious ciuestion, and trying hy cunning phrase to set voters 
against G(ai. Dix because he is a Protestant, and in favor of 
Mr. Kernan because he is " a sincere and earnest Roman 
Catholic !" Hear him. I read from his Oneida speech, pub- 
lished in the Albany Argus, Sept. 23d, as follows: 

" In looking over the history of my State I found that we 



17 

have never had a Catholic Governor, thongh Catholics con- 
stitute about one-thiril ol' the population and a vcnj lanje .share 
of the uofers. One thing I cannot bear to have said, they have 
been voting for Protestants for nearl}^ a hundred years, and I 
('a?i»o/ /^e(f/' to have it said that Protestants are more bigoted 
than Catholics, and I ccnuiof vote onre for a Catholic in return. 
Every public man in the State has asked Catholics for their 
votes. I ask them if they cannot reciprocate the favor." 

Vote against General Dix — speak against him if you will, Gov- 
ernor Seymour, but do not invoke religious preju(h(;e to your aid ; 
do not bring the crosier, and the vestments, and St. Peter's key 
and the triple crown from the mouldering Vatican and the old 
hills of Rome, and insist that free Americans shall bow down to 
these baubles. Don't raise such issues here ; you may light a 
fire which you cannot extinguish, and you will bring the spirits 
of your New England sires from their forgotten graves to chide 
their recreant son, and tell him, that to the manly soul, there is 
one thing more dear than houses, or lands, or political success, 
or wife, or child, or life itself, and that is — " tlic liherty of en- 
Ughteited coiscience." 

I ask you to vote for General Dix, not because he is a Pro- 
testant and a good, religious man, but because he is an honest 
man, because he was right on the war, because he has continued 
right, he has always been right, and he always will Ije right. 
He took the side of the Union from the start, he has been de- 
voted to the end. There is not a tarnish upon his long life of 
devoted service to his country, and we know that in his hands 
the government of our State ^dll be administered with wisdom, 
ability, justice and unswerving integrity. 

Daniel Webster and Horace Greelej* were born amidst the 
hills of New Hampshire. In the morning of life they breathed 
the same inspiring air — the air of liberty and of religion. In 
manly life, they each moved to the great city of their adopted 
State. Each sought the Presidency through the same unworthy 
means, and each will share the like fate as sure as there 
is a God in Heaven. The great Creator rules by laws — 
unerring and inexorable laws, — and he who resists great 
moved laws will be as surely crushed as though a planet rolled 
over him. 

Horace Greeley will not be the next President of the United 
States. 



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